Developmental assessments during injury research: Is enrollment of very young children in crèches associated with better scores?

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

9-26-2017

Journal

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Volume

14

Issue

10

DOI

10.3390/ijerph14101130

Keywords

Ages and stages questionnaire (ASQ); Bangladesh; Child development; Cognitive; Crèche; Daycare; Early childhood care (ECC); Early childhood development (ECD); Psychosocial

Abstract

© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. The Developmental Study is part of a larger intervention on “saving of lives from drowning (SoLiD)" where children were enrolled either into crèches (daycare centers) or playpens to prevent drowning in rural Bangladesh. Sampling ~1000 children between the ages of 9-17 months, we compared problem-solving, communication, motor and personal-social outcomes assessed by the Ages and Stages Questionnaire in the two interventions. After controlling for variables such as home stimulation in multivariate regressions, children in crèches performed about a quarter of a standard deviation better in total scores (p < 0.10) and 0.45 standard deviations higher in fine motor skills (p < 0.05). Moreover, once the sample was stratified by length of exposure to the intervention, then children in crèches performed significantly better in a number of domains: those enrolled the longest (about 5 months) have higher fine motor (1.47, p < 0.01), gross motor (0.40, p < 0.05) and personal-social skills (0.95, p < 0.01) than children in playpens. In addition, children in crèches with the longer exposure (about 5 months) have significantly higher personal-social and problem-solving scores than those in crèches with minimum exposure. Enrollment in crèches of very young children may be positively associated with psychosocial scores after accounting for important confounding variables.

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